A Day Like This, page 13
“Why don’t you go for a visit and see what you think? You don’t have to decide now.”
Lilac season is fleeting; they deliver their heavenly scent from lush blooms for just a few short weeks. Birds, butterflies, and bees are enticed by their sweet scent. A silvery mist of honey and jasmine, clean and pure, their fragrance is carried on even the barest hint of a breeze, nearly otherworldly in its beauty. The scent of them is all around me now, along with the powdery almond scent of Hannah as she leans in close.
In the dark, I feel her:
“Mommy, can you hear me?” she whispers.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I gasped for air, sitting bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding. The curtains were drawn tightly, but morning light peeked from behind them. I immediately clapped my hand over my ear, where the tickle of a child’s breath and whisper had left it tingling. I could feel her there. The combined fragrance of her skin and the lilacs was still in my nose, and I looked around for the source, expecting to see big purple blooms in vases on every surface of the room. The air was filled with their essence, the spirit of these two beautiful living things that were once mine, but there wasn’t a bloom in sight, and I was alone again.
I picked up the water glass from the nightstand, draining it of every remaining drop, waiting for my pulse to slow. Downstairs, I could still hear Graham talking, and I realized I must have been half-awake as I’d heard him. I lifted the thick gray duvet and padded over to the doorway. He was talking with his office, clearing his schedule for the day.
I remembered the conversation I had overheard in the margins of waking, putting the pieces together, and realized . . . oh my God, they must be thinking of committing me. They were giving up. But surely he wouldn’t, not after the way he was last night. Would he?
I needed to get it together. Now.
Thirty minutes later, I was showered and dressed and walked downstairs. Graham was in the kitchen, pouring boiling water into a french press. Recalling the way he’d held me last night, I went to him, placing my hand on his lower back, and leaned into him. He tensed, holding still for a moment before shifting away. “Morning.” His voice was as tight as a wire that might snap. The tension rolled off him in waves, pushing me away. “How’d you sleep?” he asked.
I stepped away, giving him his space, and he relaxed a bit. His coldness stung deeply, but I did my best to hide my disappointment. For a little while, I’d almost believed my husband was back. I was wrong.
“Good. I feel much better,” I said, keeping my voice steady, and then looked around. “You’re still here? Where’s Marcie?”
“She left last night, right after you fell asleep. She had to get home to Hunter. I stayed. We didn’t think you should be alone.”
“But I heard her talking a little while ago.”
He looked at me oddly. “No, just me.” He pulled two mugs from the cupboard. “Coffee?”
I nodded. “Was anyone else here?”
He turned to the refrigerator, removing the carton of cream. “Nope. Like I said. Just me.” There was a hint of bitterness in his words.
I tried to remember a single time when Graham had lied to me but couldn’t think of one. He was honest nearly to a fault, even when the jeans didn’t flatter or a new painting wasn’t the best. I loved it about him. Graham and I didn’t keep secrets. Our relationship was a bubble, and we were an impenetrable team. But I knew, watching him there in the kitchen with his shirt untucked, and his sleeves rolled, frustratingly sexy, that I could not trust him anymore. I was on my own. He wasn’t telling me everything.
“I’m sorry about last night,” I said, feeling embarrassed. “I decided to go to see Dr. Higgins today.” I watched him carefully, hoping he would believe me. “I think you and Marcie are right. Things must still be a little more jumbled up than I wanted to admit. Yesterday was a bit of a wake-up call. But everything is a little clearer this morning, and I’m ready to put this whole thing behind me.”
“I’m so glad to hear you say that, Ann. Really. You sound a lot better than you did yesterday.” His face had brightened, a small amount of the burden lifted.
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, as the years of trust were broken, but I forced a smile. “Definitely. I think I’ll head into the studio a little later. Start acquainting myself with the work again.” At least that was the truth.
He hesitated. He knew me well and could tell when something was wrong, but, eventually, he let it go and moved on. “Well, great! It’ll be good for you.” He lowered the plunger down on the press and poured two cups of strong, dark coffee.
“Are you working today?” I asked.
He looked away. “I have to run out of town. Meeting a client up in Connecticut.”
I blew on the coffee, looking down to hide the sadness. Evidently, my morning performance hadn’t been enough to cancel his visit to the institution. But maybe it would buy me some time.
There was something going on—unknown puzzle pieces that I’d yet to find. I had felt it in my gut from the moment I’d first woken in the hospital after the accident. And despite the oddness of it, something about yesterday’s events had only reinforced my instincts. I had been forcing myself to discount my memories, insisting even to myself that it was just a trick of the brain. Maybe it was. And maybe it wasn’t. But I needed to find out more.
My studio had begun to feel like a refuge—a place where I could safely explore, putting the pieces together, shifting them left and right, trying to assemble a greater picture. I sat at my computer, determined to learn something more—not only about my condition, but the validity of my memories. I tested myself. Were there more details of my other life that I knew, existing and waiting to surface? How much could the brain manufacture of its own accord? And if I had snapped, broken from reality in the weeks before the accident, how far had I gone to craft my imaginary world?
I picked up my phone, and with no assistance from the internet or contacts, dialed a number by memory. My thumb tapped the numbers without hesitation. A few rings later, a receptionist answered. “Diamond Pediatrics,” the woman said.
“Yes, hello, I’d like to make an appointment with Dr. Renning for my daughter for her annual checkup,” I explained. “Is he still off on Mondays?”
“Yes, he is. But he has availability this . . .”
Click. I ended the call. Still off on Mondays.
I pulled up the pediatrician’s website. I clicked on the gallery, as scenes of Mother Goose popped up, confirming what I knew. The rooms were decorated in murals, scenes from nursery rhymes. Baskets of children’s books sat beneath the exam tables to entertain waiting children. Would I have been that detailed? Researched something as mundane as a pediatrician, simply to satisfy a grand delusion. I knew what Graham would say. What Dr. Higgins would say. But in my heart I heard Hannah’s whisper.
Mommy, can you hear me?
And a shiver ran up my spine.
Furiously, I began to search for another option. Maybe there were other cases like mine. I entered the search term Stories of False Memories. At first, the results were as expected—clinical studies. But then I searched Stories of False Memories in History, and suddenly the results opened up to numerous stories, albeit many far-fetched, in which a person reported having memories of activities or details that differed from the reality in which they lived.
As I began to read, Piper walked in.
“Morning,” she said, setting a bag of croissants and tea in front of me.
I smiled up at her. “Thank you. That was sweet.”
“My pleasure,” she chirped. She walked to her desk, arranging her belongings before bustling over to some papers, perpetually in motion. “Dare I ask,” she said coyly, “are you going to be painting today?”
“Huh? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe,” I said, distracted. I skimmed more stories on the screen. “We’ll see.”
She raised her hands. “No pressure, just asking.” She blew the steam on her tea. “What are you working on?”
“Research. Sort of.” I sipped my tea, scrolling through results on the screen. Piper watched, waiting for me to elaborate. “Something that my therapist told me. It was just a story, but I keep thinking about it. Remember when you talked about your neighbor who swore his car changed color?”
“Sure.” Her deep-red hair was in a sleek ponytail, and she moved it over one shoulder. With pale skin and a few freckles, she wore nearly no makeup, with the exception of a narrow line of perfectly drawn black eyeliner and wine-stained lips.
“Did you know there are other people with stories like that out there? Who swear they remember a whole different series of events playing out in their lives? Pop culture references that apparently never existed, or existed differently than most of us remember, that sort of thing. Normal everyday people who woke up to things being different in their world. It’s weird.”
“Definitely. But that must be comforting in a way, yeah? Knowing that you’re not the only one who’s experienced something like that?”
I laughed. “Comforting isn’t the word I’d use. It’s mostly people wearing tinfoil hats and also talking about green men.”
“Ah, I see. I can make you one if you’d like. Order you a chic one from some awesome designer. Wear it to the Met Gala.”
“Ha ha,” I said. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Want some help?” she asked.
“Really?” I perked up, as I realized it was the first time anyone had asked me that.
“Of course! Two heads are better than one,” she said. She went to her desk and picked up her laptop, bringing it over to the table and sitting in the chair across from me. “What?” she asked, when she saw the expression on my face. “I’m a sucker for weird conspiracy stories.”
“That’s not why you’re helping,” I said, wanting to reach over and hug her. “Thank you.”
She winked sweetly. “Okay. Let’s see . . .” She began tapping away as we both scanned websites. “Oh God, I see what you’re saying. Lots of bizarre stuff. People are so weird.”
“Yep.” I sighed.
“But here, listen to this one. It says, ‘How would things be different if you had taken that job you turned down? What would you be like if you hadn’t broken up with your fiancé before the wedding? What if you hadn’t missed the plane? One woman claims to have woken up in a life different than her own.’” I leaned over toward her computer, and she shifted the screen into view as she scanned the article, reading out loud. “In 2008, a woman claims to have woken up one morning, frightened when she noticed minor differences in her surroundings that became more significant as the day wore on. At first, it was her bedsheets. Everything in her bedroom was the same, but her sheets were a different pattern, and not ones that she’d previously owned.” Piper shivered. “That would be so creepy. Anyway, let’s see here . . . as the day went on, she went to work, but they didn’t know who she was, despite the fact that she knew countless details about the office. And she learned she was still dating her ex-boyfriend, who she hadn’t seen in more than a year.”
“Wow,” I said, startled by the similarities. “That’s bizarre.”
“The woman didn’t know what to do, so she reached out on the internet, I guess looking for help. There were other things about her life that were changed—clothing she didn’t remember buying, emails she didn’t remember typing, little things about her family members’ lives being different. But the date was the same. It says at first she thought she’d had a stroke or amnesia or something and went to countless doctors, but everything checked out.”
“What happened to her?”
Piper shrugged. “It doesn’t say, really. There’s a quote from one of her online posts. Says she knows no one will believe her. She said she believes she woke up in an alternate universe. And then it just ends. She drops off the web after around 2009.”
“Huh,” I said. “She’s right. It’s impossible to believe. People would think she’s nuts for sure.”
Piper offered a sympathetic smile. “Hey, the world is a strange place. You never know!”
I laughed. “All right. Let’s see what else we can find.”
Piper continued scrolling, while I did the same. “Here’s one,” I said a few moments later. “The Man from Taured—the country that never existed.”
“Sounds sketchy already.” She arched a manicured brow and craned her neck toward my screen. “That’s creepy,” she said, when I pointed at a grainy black-and-white photo of the man.
“This all sounds like alien-hunter stuff,” I echoed. Nothing like what I was experiencing. It wasn’t real life. It was sci-fi.
“Sort of. But there are lots of other stories. Maybe there are others out there that are a little less—”
“Weird?” I said.
“Yeah, pretty much. But hey, look, it’s not all kooky. Here’s a TED Talk by Brian Greene on parallel universes and the science behind them. I’ve seen this, actually.”
My skepticism must have shown on my face.
“Honest! It’s pretty cool. Did you see him on Colbert?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“You’ve never heard of him? Do you not watch The Big Bang Theory?” She groaned disapprovingly. “He’s this rock star mathematician physicist who explains things in a way so that normal people can understand. Here . . . watch.” A TED Talk started playing from YouTube. “It’s all about string theory and how the calculations of it show the likelihood of multiple dimensions and whatever,” she said. “Freaky stuff.”
“Did you just say ‘string theory’?” I stared at her.
“What—I like science.” She shrugged.
I stood and walked over to the windows. “Forget it. I’m starting to sound ridiculous even to myself.” It was a foolish waste of time.
“Annie, listen,” Piper said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. If I were you? If I were in your shoes? I’d be wondering all the exact same things. No matter how far-out or ridiculous they seemed. Even if I woke up to something so mundane like my sheets were different, or, God forbid, I was still dating some loser from last year, it would be awful.”
“It’s just that I’m remembering so much. Things that I don’t feel like I could have possibly made up. But I can’t seem to prove any of it. Everything feels like I’m in a fun house, with hundreds of mirrors everywhere and no way to tell which reflection is real. Do you know I actually went to a bereavement group the other day? For people who have lost children? It was unspeakably awful. I didn’t talk. I couldn’t. I just sat there, listening, and crying. I felt like a horrible fraud.”
She looked up at me with kind eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“And I have these odd sensations, images from nowhere popping into my mind, and now I’m questioning everything. Like the way—”
“Hey, come look at this.” She walked over to the printer and retrieved several pages as they spit out. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.” I waved off her apology. “This was in The Guardian last year.” She pointed at the screen, leaving me with the pages as she returned to her computer and continued talking. “A journalist in London did a lot of research on this stuff, interviewed neurologists about how and why people are misremembering things and seeing them differently. Some of it’s silly things, like songs or movie quotes that have changed and such, but it looks like there are some more concrete things also.”
I raised an eyebrow, and Piper shrugged while I continued to scan the article.
“This guy is the real deal. Not a quack.” Piper clicked away at the computer, reading aloud. “Jonathan Deveraux is a British newspaper columnist and commentator. He is a frequent contributor to The Independent, the Daily Telegraph, and several BBC News shows, prior to which he was a weekly columnist for The Guardian, for which he still contributes intermittently. Nominated for various awards, journalist of the year, yada yada. Looks like he covers investigative journalism, mostly political stories. Oh wow, he was the South African correspondent for The Guardian for two years. Ooh! And he’s cute!” She popped a jelly bean into her mouth. “I think we should call him.”
“And say what?” I asked.
“I don’t know . . . maybe tell him you’re researching . . . weird stuff or something. For your work.”
I cocked my head. “Seriously?”
“Or tell him the truth. Whatever. But we have to call him. He’s done all the work already! Look at this: he’s talked to every single top-notch specialist from psychics to psychiatrists to Nobel Prize–winning scientists. What harm could it do to talk to him?”
“I can think of a lot.”
“He’s the first person we’ve found who seems legit and who has at least acknowledged that things like this are happening to people. Annie, he’s got access to the best experts out there.”
“That’s true.” I continued reading, considering it. “Maybe I could get some contacts from him, at the very least. Is there anything else like this from him?”
Piper squinted at the screen. “No, not really. It looks a little outside his norm. And he doesn’t seem to have done much at all recently.”
Piper was already dialing. She asked to speak with Jonathan Deveraux and, a moment later, left a surprisingly authoritative voice mail indicating that she was the assistant to the artist Annie Beyers and needed to speak with him, urging him to call her.
I sighed, going back to the window. “I don’t know . . . this is all too bizarre. I feel like if I could just figure out what I was doing up there near my old house that day it would be a key. But there’s nothing.” I groaned, frustrated. Piper was silent behind me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “This isn’t in your job description.” I chuckled, but when I turned, she had a serious look on her face. There was a thick silence in the room.
“Piper?”
She seemed unwilling to meet my eyes, taking a deep breath before she finally spoke. “I think I should show you something,” she said.
“Show me what?”
She seemed unsure. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. But it doesn’t seem right anymore to keep it from you. I can’t.”
